Movement is the raison d’etre of New York. In The Great Port, Jan Morris explores the waterfronts and thoroughfares of 1950`s Manhattan just as she navigated the canals of Venice; she knows every bridge, every tunnel, every island of the whole archipelago. She depicts the city as a place of constant motion, which has been translated into a culture of inveterate restlessness. First published in 1957, The Great Port is a vivid and entertaining portrait of a splendid old seaport whose purposes have gone awry.

When The Great Port appeared in New York, the Wall Street Journal called it ‘unique’, the New York Times said it discovered more than most New Yorkers had ever learnt, and the Publisher’s Weekly thought it perhaps the best book on New York since the classic work of E. B. White.